Donald Trump wins New Hampshire primary as Nikki Haley vows to fight on

The Associated Press declared Donald Trump the winner of the New Hampshire Republican primary shortly after the polls closed Tuesday night. But Trump may not have won enough of the vote to make the argument that Nikki Haley needs to drop out of the race.

Results in New Hampshire showed Trump ahead of Haley, but the gap was closer than polls predicted. With 80% of the votes in, Trump was up 55% to 44%.

In her concession speech, Haley vowed to stay in the race, and she sharpened her attack against Trump, saying Democrats wanted to run against him. She also made several references to his age.

Trump went after Haley in his victory speech, saying she was acting like she had won even though he was ahead. He also reacted to her comments on whether he could win against President Joe Biden, saying he was ahead in head-to-head polls against Biden.

“She’s doing a speech like she won,” said Trump. “She didn’t win. She lost.”

“And then I looked at the polls, she was talking about most winnability, who’s going to win and I had one put up, I don’t know if you saw it, but I had one put up,” he said. “We’ve won almost every single poll in the last three months against crooked Joe Biden — almost. And she doesn’t win. And she doesn’t win. This is not your typical victory speech, but let’s not have somebody take a victory when she had a very bad night.”

In recent polls, Trump is ahead of Biden by between 1-5 points, while Haley is ahead of Biden by 3-5 points.

Trump invited former opponents Sen. Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy to speak on his behalf. Ramaswamy and Haley tussled during several of the Republican debates, and he immediately attacked Haley for deciding to continue her run.

“What we see right now with her continuing in this race is the ugly underbelly of American politics,” Ramaswamy said. “Where the mega donors are trying to do one thing when we the people say another.”

Scott, who was appointed as a U.S. senator by Haley in South Carolina, chose not to attack her, instead making clear he stood with Trump.

“I’m going to invite you to my home state starting tomorrow,” Scott said. “When this election is over, it is time for the Republican Party to coalesce around our nominee and the next president of United States, Donald Trump.”

Trump’s only remarks on policy were about immigration. He criticized Biden for the increase in the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border.

“We have millions and millions of people flowing into our country illegally,” he said. “... They come from prisons, and they come from mental institutions. And it’s just killing our country — and I’m talking about millions and millions and millions.”

Haley: With Donald Trump, Republicans lose

In her concession speech, Haley said Trump wouldn’t be able to beat Biden in the general election, and said Americans want someone in the race besides Trump and Biden.

“With Donald Trump, Republicans have lost almost every competitive election,” she said. “We lost the Senate. We lost the House. We lost the White House.”

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“The worst-kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump. They know Trump is the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat. You can’t fix the mess if you don’t win an election. A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency,” she said.

Haley said she was looking forward to competing against the former president in her home state of South Carolina, which will hold its primary on Feb. 24. Haley was the governor of South Carolina before serving as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration.

Haley told her supporters, “At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running and we were at 2% in the polls. Well, I’m a fighter. And I’m scrapping and now we’re the last one standing next to Donald Trump.”

While just a month ago Trump was far ahead of Haley in New Hampshire state polls, it appears Haley was able to close some of that gap before voting began.

Besides winning the endorsement of the state’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, Haley picked up extra support as other opponents like Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race.

Despite her loss, when Haley stepped up to give her concession speech, the crowd that greeted her was boisterous.

Haley said she would stay in the race despite “chatter from the political class.”

“I have news for all of them,” she said. “New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last. This race is far from over.”

Haley repeated her critique that Trump would bring chaos to the country and challenged the former president to “stand on a debate stage with me.”

“Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump,” she said. “The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.” Trump is 77.

Nevada is next on the calendar, but candidates are mostly skipping Nevada, instead heading to South Carolina. The Nevada Republican primary has lost some of its significance because of the state party’s decision to hold a “preference primary poll” during caucus meetings in February, but the Republican primary election is still on the calendar.

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Biden wins even though he wasn’t on the ballot

New Hampshire Democrats decided to go ahead with their primary even though the Democratic National Committee said they wouldn’t accept delegates from the state if they moved forward.

Biden did not appear on the state’s ballot, choosing instead to support the DNC’s decision to hold its first primary in South Carolina.

While Biden wasn’t on the ballot, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips was. He had hoped New Hampshire Democrats would reward him for campaigning in the state.

Phillips has said he’s running because he’s worried Biden can’t beat Trump.

“Coronating incumbents, even when they are not electable, even when the country says they don’t want it — particularly in light of the consequence of a Donald Trump re-election — it’s tragic, and that’s why somebody has to do something,” Phillips told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview.

But Biden’s supporters launched a write-in campaign for him, and the president was able to win with about 70% of the vote; 20% went to Phillips.

Contributing: Samuel Benson